Direct teaching? Or letting children explore?

MIT professor Laura Schulz, her graduate student Elizabeth Bonawitz, and their colleagues looked at how 4-year-olds learned about a new toy with four tubes. Each tube could do something interesting: If you pulled on one tube it squeaked, if you looked inside another tube you found a hidden mirror, and so on.

For one group of children, the experimenter said: "I just found this toy!" As she brought out the toy, she pulled the first tube, as if by accident, and it squeaked. She acted surprised ("Huh! Did you see that? Let me try to do that!") and pulled the tube again to make it squeak a second time.

With the other children, the experimenter acted more like a teacher. She said, "I'm going to show you how my toy works. Watch this!" and deliberately made the tube squeak. Then she left both groups of children alone to play with the toy.

All of the children pulled the first tube to make it squeak. The question was whether they would also learn about the other things the toy could do. The children from the first group played with the toy longer and discovered more of its "hidden" features than those in the second group. In other words, direct instruction made the children less curious and less likely to discover new information.

extracted from http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html

Of leaving & goodbyes

It's my last week, and there are many students I won't be teaching anymore, so now is the time to take lots of pictures and say goodbye.

One of the child took goodbye pretty badly. He cried and said I don't want other teacher to teach me. I want you. He cried for about 40 minutes and kept repeating the same thing. My heart broke :(

Nevertheless I am anticipating my next journey as there will always be more children for me to love!

You are my child, I love you so
Just look in my eyes & you will know
You make me smile
You make me sing
I know, with love, you can do anything!

Book Sales - Big Bad Wolf + Scholastic Book Buffet

I have been spending too much on books. But the reason I buy books is because I really believe that reading is an excellent hobby to pick up. I buy all sorts of books: novels, memoirs, parenting books, children's books. Recently have been to a few book sales...hence overspending.

Of course there is the Big Bad Wolf sale. It has been getting lots of hype. I think this is the third time I am going. And I always drop by Book Xcess just to shop. In a nutshell, they can sell books cheap because they buy leftovers, thus the lack of popular titles.

I went after a long looong day of work and I was so tired though we were only there for about 2 hours. Bought 5 books for myself, and 20 children's books. For children's books, the prices were from about RM5 - RM10. Quite reasonable.

Another not as popular book sale is the book buffet by Scholastic. It was held in Midvalley Megakids and it costs RM49.90 for a bag (sized 25cm x 26cm). You can stuff as many books as you can. The bag was quite small but somehow, somehow, I managed to stuff these books inside:

Children's books

Books for my sister (11 years old)

I actually didn't really want some of the books, but the kiasu side of me just stuffed and stuffed the bag until it REALLY couldn't fit anymore. LOL

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 

― Dr. Seuss

Kids Say the Funniest Things

(The conversation was carried out in Mandarin)
Child (6 years old): Teacher, where did you come from?
Me: (Blur) What do you mean?
Child: I mean, are you from Malaysia or what?
Me: Ya, of course I am from Malaysia.
Child: Then why you know English one? I thought you are from Russia.

Hahahahaha

Praises - Not so great after all?

"Sometimes, kids who are overconfident and have been told that everything they do is wonderful actually can fear failure and be less likely to take on challenges"

I read this in the papers in an article "Debunking Parenting Myths" about the book Parent-Babble: How Parents can Recover from Fifty Years of Bad Expert Advice by John Rosemond. (Maybe one day I will buy the book, but for now, I have been spending too much on books!)

According to Rosemond, behaviour modification (using awards & punishments) to manipulate behaviour works on pets, but there is no evidence that it works on humans.

Montessori did not find rewards necessary and found that children did not appreciate the rewards which were given.

A study was also done by Harlow, and the bottom line is that the monkeys who were rewarded did not continue doing the puzzle after they received their reward, and the monkeys who did not receive any reward continued repeating the puzzle even after it was completed.

Jane Nelsen (positive discipline) says that if you praise too much, children might become "Approval Junkies", where they will constantly look towards adults for validation. "Teacher, see my drawing!"

To me, at the end of the day, it is HOW one praises which matter. Instead of generalizing your praises, "Good job!" "Well done!" "Great work!", be specific. You can describe, say a painting, "I see you used yellow colour to paint the sun". Recognize effort, "I see you worked really hard". Give encouragement, "Keep trying!". Or just don't say anything. According to Montessori, normalised children love silence. When they are concentrating on a piece of work, why distract & interrupt them with your good job well done. Just let them work in silence!

 If you make it all about rewards and praises, then their motivation comes from you. At the end of the day, a child would learn best if the motivation comes from within.

Ability Development from Age Zero by Shinichi Suzuki

Some points from his book which I totally, wholeheartedly agree:

- The fate of a child is in the hands of his parents.
- Talent has to be nurtured (Every child has the inborn potential, but if not nurtured, the talent won't develop)
- Children are like seedlings. If you set a child aside until primary school and then only start educating them, it is like taking a withering sprout and suddenly giving it large amounts of fertilizer, putting it in sunlight & flooding it with water. It is too late.
- Regardless how much interest a mother has, if a child does not want to practice, nothing will happen. Yes, they will practice, but it will not develop into an ability. When the child has the desire, then only the ability will be internalized.

- It is better to present a child fun tasks which he can do. Tasks which are done happily are internalized.

- Train a child to be ambidextrous - use both hands

The Mother Tongue Method
All Japanese children speak Japanese. From birth, babies absorb the language that they are exposed to and are able to learn the language. The same concept applies. If you want your child to play a musical instrument, expose them to songs you would want them to play. Let them listen to it repeatedly. Let them watch other children playing the song. Let them watch YOU learn how to play. One day, the child will automatically have the desire to learn to play the instrument.

Once they learn, let them perform to daddy on a makeshift stage. Daddy must applaud and say that he wants to listen again next week. By the next week, they would have improved.

Are Babies Born Good??

Are babies born good?

A thought provoking video to watch!! :)